Posts Tagged ‘marketing’

Yesterday I sat on the couch, glued to the action on TV. The Wimbledon tennis championship was on, and one of the players I really admire was on centre court. Serena Williams was playing excellent tennis and fighting to get through to the next round. I say ‘fighting’ because her opponent was playing well also, and she was not going to just let Serena waltz through. It was a tense match.

Throughout the match, I found myself speaking and at times, even shouting at the television, willing Serena to do well and sending her encouragement and good energy through the airwaves. It occurred to me that I was being a textbook ‘raving fan’ (or maybe raving lunatic, if you would ask my neighbours!)

It also occurred to me how great it would be if we all had those kind of fans – the kind that would really be rooting for us and willing us to win. The kind who would forget all ideas of preparing lunch, doing the chores and everything else, just to be there for us (I did finally eat soemthing at about 3pm!)

I’m sure you have people you can count on: friends, family, good clients and maybe even some super-satisfied clients who speak well of you, write testimonials and endorsements and refer other clients to you. But what if you had more? And what if they all were absolutely crazy about you and your service?

It’s my belief that you can design all sorts of campaigns and programs to get more people to endorse you and endorse you more heartily, but you can never really predict or control their response. Think of a time when someone had promised to help you with something, but then they had an emergency at home or at work, or they just got distracted with other things. Their intentions were good, but they could not, or chose not to, follow through.

Therefore, the sensible thing to do is to focus on something you can control, and that is the raving you do about and for others. See where you can help and support more people. Aim to be a better friend, client, associate, affiliate or partner. Look for ways to really add value to that person. Become the raving fan yourself.

This means you will need to temporarily stop pleading and begging and coercing others to Like your page or your business, review your book, promote your services or help you out in any other way. You will need to take the focus off of yourself, even if you feel you really need the help. It may seem counter-intuitive but I believe that when you turn the focus around, it has several benefits. First, it is liberating to think of others and makes you feel and look good.

Secondly, it allows you to be more creative, as you focus on someone else and something else besides your own project.

Finally, as many thought leaders in the area of influence have discovered, helping others puts a credit into the ’emotional bank account’ and makes them feel more like returning the favour. It may not happen immediately, and this is certainly not the main reason for helping someone, but it all goes into the pot and when the time comes and you are the one needing help or support, people will remember.

The Law of Attraction and other universal laws suggest that what you put out comes back to you. If you believe that, then you can see that all the support, help and love you give to the people you trust and endorse will reflect back on you and you will win as well. Luckily, life is not like a game of tennis where there can only be one winner. We can all win and enjoy the game a lot more too.

Structured networking is an amazing concept. To speak to a group of 20, 30 or 40 people and have them all listen to you, even for just a few seconds, can be the best thing you do to promote your business. (It can also be the worst thing you do, if you offend people, sell to the room, fail to say anything interesting or any number of other networking ‘sins’.)

I’m particularly interested in networking as part of the marketing plan. It is not always easy to plan for the ad-hoc events that come up, but there are lots of structured meetings that you can plan into your schedule and be strategic about it.

I’ve recently joined 4Networking, which is the UK’s fastest-growing networking organization. They have a ‘passport’ where you can attend different groups and you can go along as many times as you like – up to 4 times a week! My main reason for networking at the moment is to increase visibility. I then go meet those people I think are the most interesting and build relationships with them.

Obviously I will be abiding by the REAL Thought Leaders rulebook and make sure my message is compelling, well thought through and relevant. In addition to thinking about the content, you also want to be strategic about spreading the net – in REAL Thought Leader terms, exactly how do you want to go about extending your reach?

With that in mind, I’m just wondering how many groups to visit and how often. How many new connections can my brain handle without starting to forget people or get them mixed up? If it were you, how would you do it? How many groups can you realistically be part of, how many new people can you realistically meet and get to know and how much time do you spend on it?